This invention relates to the production of vinylic alcohol copolymers and provides a new method for producing them from vinyl ester and carbon monoxide copolymers.
The commonly known method for the production of vinylic alcohol copolymers involves the hydrolysis of ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymers to give products in which a part or all of the acetate groups of the copolymers have been converted to hydroxy radicals. The hydrolysis or saponification is generally effected by the use of a catalyst for alcoholysis such as a strong base, mineral acid, or alkaline metal alcoholate in an alcohol such as methanol or ethanol.
It is known to use dialkyl aluminum hydrides and aluminum trialkyls to reduce organic compounds which contain multiple linkages between carbon and oxygen and/or carbon and nitrogen such as aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, their hydrides and esters, lactones, acid amides, nitriles, lactams, and oximes. "Reductions with Dialkyl Aluminum Hydrides" by Miller, Biss and Schwartzman, Journal of Organic Chemistry, Vol. 24, page 627 (1959) discloses the reduction of benzoic acid to benzyl alcohol using dialkyl aluminum hydrides. U.S. Pat. No. 3,143,542, issued Aug. 1, 1964, discloses a process for the reduction of such organic compounds with organic aluminum compounds as does "Aluminiumtrialkyle und Dialkyl-Aluminiumhydride Als Reduktionsmittel" by Ziegler, K. Schneider, and J. Schneider, Justus Liebig's Ann. Chem., Vol 623, page 9 (1959).